Well I got this for Christmas and absolutely bloody love it! I've only done four or five missions of the campaign but it's all great stuff, it reminds me a bit more of the first Halo. Not as many HUGE open areas, but still... I forgot how great simple firefights could be.

MP isn't letting me down either, it feels 'right' again, finally. I didn't get on with Reach at all!

I really miss being able to play Halo in split screen. Only a small selection of the maps seem to actually be playable at a decent frame rate. I swear on Shatter it was actually single digit at times, you can't play a FPS like that.

Also, the matchmaking is still fairly shambolic. Black screen seems to last for an eternity and I've had resets to lobby a few times now.

I've got such a love/hate relationship with this thing. When you can get a decent game it can be absolutely glorious but it's mired in frustrating decisions or technical failings.

Roll on next gen I guess, that's if they don't omit split screen altogether by then.

Well I completed it and loved every minute, as I was saying before! Not sure about Spartan Ops though... I don't really 'get' what it is and the video episodes make Spartans appear to be jock arseholes rather than the unfeeling near-machines I naturally assumed they'd be.

I think anyone can be a Spartan now, they are like special arsehole ops. I don't think they even modify them or perhaps it's more streamlined and not so barbaric. Pretty non pulsed series, like a worse Firefight with horrible voice overs.

Yeah, I quite liked it to be honest! I don't see how they could have done it without a just-as-cliched boss fight really. The only bit I didn't really like was the explanation for how Cortana saves the Chief. She basically just goes "yeah, so, you're fine because of me... can't tell you how... bye".

So is Cortana Master Chief's girlfriend, now? Was the whole game focused on their sudden close relationship or what?

And why do the female Spartans have boobs and less muscle density when they're supposed to have suppressed secondary sexual characteristics and genetically engineered muscles? Normally I wouldn't care about this sort of stuff in games but in the context of Halo it makes absolutely no sense.
(I know it was like this in Reach, too, but I've just realized that it's odd recently.)

Edit: on second thoughts maybe it's just Spartan II's who were like that.

And why are the female superior officers called sir?

And it feels like a self contained story rather than the beginning of a trilogy, but I'm probably missing a huge amount of context. This is probably a good thing, though.

I bet Halo 6's ending will have Cortana being made real by the composer, the Chief and her will live happily for all of five minutes until a Jackal somehow fires a single needle bolt through John's near-impervious shields and armour killing him instantly.

Chief being an old man will end up with Halsey who Cortana is based on. I bet to save Cortana, Halsey will have to die in some way, basically her memories and soul which Cortana will replace to survive which offers some redemption for Halsey. They will both die in the end but in the comfort of each other. It probably feels like an old relationship for them and they are never ever going to show Chief and Cortana getting it on. Old couple it is.

ResidentKnievel wrote:
And why are the female superior officers called sir?

That's a real world US Military thing.

It's the whole asexual = equality thing. Although sir is definitely more of a masculine title. Maybe a new title is needed?

Back to Halo 4 and I want to shove that incineration cannon up the developers collective arses. It is the single most ridiculous weapon in a Halo game. I got spawned in front of the same guy on three occasions on Solace and he nuked me each time. There was literally nothing I could do, at least with a rocket launcher I have a chance but the blast of an incineration cannon is all encompassing.

I'm really enjoying the new maps although it's telling that the designated playlist has a paltry number of participants.

It's obviously doing something right though as I keep wanting to play it and get good at it, it is awesome at times but some issues are teeth knashingly frustrating.

Nades wrote:
Does anyone know when they're doing the skill-based ranking system update?

It's already in the game, it's just going to be made visible and tweaked to improve it. They're basically using the data from the invisible system to tune it for when it's visible, which should hopefully mean for better matchmaking

Citation, should you need it, specifically "At Halo 4ís launch, the competitive skill system will measure your performance against other players in Halo 4 War Games and use this information to match you up against opponents of comparable skill ranks."

I don't think there's any more specifics so far, but I'd rather they took their time with this. The more games that get played, the better the data they have to get it just right.

As Fawkes said, there IS a skill-based matchmaking thing in it. Everyone bleats for numbers, which only ever offered a rough approximation of quality. Better than nothing, but hardly anything to go nuts over. But then, this is Halo.

Having several family member in the military ex or serving, both in the British and American I can re affirm the fact it is ma'am not sir. Nothing to do with equality, so you either call a female officer ma'am or acknowledge her by her rank.

I guess halo thinks in the future everyone has a penis. That is as stupid as not being able to call a married woman Mrs because it is sexiest.